DWM 488 Thanks 40 Memories

Last night Fan Twin came in and said he wanted to talk to me about how Adrian died. I was puzzled until he carried on to talk about Cybermen and freighters crashing into Earth and killing dinosaurs and I realised he meant Adric. Slip of the memory. Although, for amusement’s sake, we are now forever after going to refer to Adric as Adrian the Alzarian.

Memory is a mysterious thing. We’re rewatching the last season at the moment. ‘How come Danny didn’t recognise Clara when he met her again when he was grown up?’ asked Non-Fan Twin after we’d watched Listen. This is because when you are eight, you don’t realise that later on you will remember very little of what happened when you were eight, which is in some respects a huge relief and in others an absolute tragedy.

We have a family reunion coming up (hopefully not so named because it’s a cross between The Family of Blood and School Reunion), so I expect there will be lots of reminiscences, lots of memories surfacing. And the very week this issue hits the newsstands will also see husband’s 40th birthday, which in Who terms is the one where you don’t get any celebrations on telly, not even a charity special with strange floating heads of your earliest selves. Nevertheless, a milestone. A small party is planned with a few of his old friends. There’ll be a lot of reminiscing there too. It’s nice when you’re reminded of happy times and places. So, in tribute to my lovely husband, let me give you a thing to remember that might make you smile for each year of his life so far:

1975: Guy Crayford’s eyepatch revelation. Did he never look? Did he never wash his face?

1989: The novelisation of Delta and the Bannermen, in which the Doctor pees over a shelf.

1990: Dapol’s two-armed Davros.

1991: Tomb of the Cybermen is found. In Hong Kong!

1992: Bernice Surprise Summerfield!

1993: “Pickled in time, like gherkins in a jar.”

1994: We nearly get a Doctor Who movie in which the TARDIS has holographic lips that rap. Possibly.

1995: DWM publishes the lyrics to The Ballad of the Last Chance Saloon – with an extra, untransmitted verse!

1996: Paul McGann’s wig.

1997: “Where’s your sense of ’umour?” Destiny of the Doctors gives the Master a red bubble car with the registration MAS 1.

1998: Dapol K9 with ‘35th anniversary’ on the side! Limited to 350 units. 45,650 small boys are disappointed.

1999: Hugh Grant is the Doctor!

2000: Big Finish releases an audio with Frobisher the penguin in it. Big Finish gets complaints about releasing an audio with Frobisher the penguin in it.

2001: The Callieach coaster. You can buy a coaster. Of the Callieach. In high street stores. In the 21st century.

2002: BBC Books releases a pink book with a pink poodle on the cover. BBC Books gets complaints about releasing a pink book with a pink poodle on the cover.

2003: What, we don’t get even a tiny anniversary special on TV? The only way we’ll forgive that if it it’s announced that the series is coming back produced by someone brilliant like Russell T Davies! Ah. Good.

2010: “I’m the Doctor, the Oncoming Storm, and you basically meant beat them in a football match, didn’t you.”

2011: A Rill. A RILL!!!!!!!!

2012: Automated laser monkeys!

2013: “I’m a doctor. But probably not the one you’re expecting.”

2014: “DR CHANG!”

2015: Peter Capaldi meets the Monoids in ‘Revenge of the Security Kitchen’. Well, you never know…

AUTHOR’S NOTE: It’s now December 2015 and I’m still waiting for my ‘Revenge of the Security Kitchen’. I’m choosing to believe that ‘The Husbands of River Song’ – the recently released title for the Christmas special – is a smokescreen to hide its real content. Steven Moffat, don’t fail me now!